Battery Park

God grant rest to President Ford and all those who loved him.  He was a good man, who served our nation the best he could.

That said, I have to vehemently disagree with all those paying tribute to his decision to pardon Nixon.

Yes, the nation was being ripped apart, but that was because the President was knowingly and repeatedly breaking the law.  Back in those days, it took more than a semen-stained dress to initiate impeachment proceedings, and Nixon, bless his heart, finally crossed the line by actually bugging the Democrats.  (Yes, all you Young Republicans out there- not only was that wrong back then, it is STILL wrong today, no matter what Ann Coulter says.)  Things were so blatantly obvious that Nixon didn't even drag the nation through the impeachment process.  If only Clinton had been so honorable!

But Ford's blanket pardoning of Nixon was wrong, and here's why:

No actual criminal proceedings had been drawn up against the President, and indeed, it was not even clear if and how such charges could be raised.  There is a vital and critical Constitutional question at stake here:  Can the President, as Chief Executive, ever actually violate the law, and if so, can s/he be held accountable for such violations?  By issuing a blanket pardon, Ford left that question essentially unasked, and the result is that today, only 30 years out from Watergate, we have an administration that imperiously acts as if Watergate never happened!  What is worse, this administration (unlike Nixon's) has clearly written laws that make its domestic spying activity blatantly and flagrantly illegal; yet there are those who insist that it is impossible for the President to be in violation of law, since he is the Executor of that law.

My own opinion on the matter is plain enough- no one, no priest, poet or politician is every above the law; but I will at least allow that the point has not been definitively decided.  Watergate was the time for that question to be answered, and by issuing his pardon, Ford failed the Constitution.

Although I was only 9 at the time, I remember being troubled by the simple question:  Can a person be pardoned if they are never even charged with a crime?  Yet, that is precisely what Ford did.  Retrospectively, he gave Nixon a blank check for all that he done, and actually killed any active investigation into what may have occurred.  I would have accepted a pardon AFTER filing of charges and possible conviction.  But as much as the nation needed healing, it also needed questions and answers.